Before Dred Scott draws on the freedom suits filed in the St Louis Circuit Court to construct a groundbreaking history of slavery and legal culture within the American Confluence, a vast region where the Ohio, Mississippi, and Missouri Rivers converge. Formally divided between slave and free territories and states, the American Confluence was nevertheless a site where the borders between slavery and freedom, like the borders within the region itself, were fluid. Such ambiguity produced a radical indeterminacy of status, which, in turn, gave rise to a distinctive legal culture made manifest by the prosecution of hundreds of freedom suits, including the case that ultimately culminated in the landmark United States Supreme Court decision in Dred Scott vs Sandford. Challenging dominant trends in legal history, Before Dred Scott argues that this distinctive legal culture, above all, was defined by ordinary people's remarkable understanding of and appreciation for formal law.
Author(s): Anne Twitty
Edition: 1,
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Year: 2016
Language: English
Pages: 302
City: Cambridge
Cover......Page 1
Half-title......Page 3
Series information......Page 5
Title page......Page 7
Copyright information......Page 8
Dedication......Page 9
Table of contents......Page 11
List of maps, charts, and tables......Page 12
Acknowledgments......Page 13
Introduction......Page 17
Part I......Page 41
1 A Radical Indeterminacy of Status......Page 43
I......Page 44
II......Page 61
III......Page 72
IV......Page 83
2 “With the Ease of a Veteran Litigant”......Page 87
I......Page 88
II......Page 91
III......Page 99
I......Page 112
II......Page 118
III......Page 131
IV......Page 135
Part II......Page 143
4 Slavery from Liberty to Equality......Page 145
I......Page 146
II......Page 154
III......Page 165
5 “Working His Emancipation”......Page 171
I......Page 173
II......Page 180
III......Page 187
IV......Page 190
6 Exploiting the Uncertainties of Federalism......Page 196
I......Page 198
II......Page 203
III......Page 206
IV......Page 212
V......Page 217
VI......Page 221
7 Remembering Slavery and Freedom in the American Confluence......Page 226
I......Page 227
II......Page 232
III......Page 241
Conclusion......Page 249
Appendix......Page 260
Index......Page 291
